DelBene: Reichert ‘part of the problem’ in D.C.

On the surface, Suzan DelBene’s challenge of Rep. Dave Reichert has a familiar look. In 2006 and 2008 Reichert beat Darcy Burner, a Democrat who worked at Microsoft who had no prior elected experience. DelBene is a Democrat who was an executive at Microsoft and other tech companies who also has never held office.

DelBene

However unlike Burner, who courted the liberal wing of her party and was a favorite of the national, left-wing blogosphere, DelBene has focused more on getting out in the 8th District. She’s hoping her months of retail campaigning will pay off in the fall. Encompassing Seattle’s eastern suburbs and northern Pierce County, the district is seen as one of the true “swing” areas in the country. Though voters have never sent a Democrat to Congress since the 8th was created in 1980, they voted for Barack Obama and increasingly are prone to elect Democrats to represent them in Olympia.

The Republican Reichert did well in last week’s primary, getting 47 percent of the vote to DelBene’s 27 percent, leading some national observers to suggest the 8th will once again be painted red (In 2008 Reichert led Burner 48-44 in the primary; in 2006, Burner actually got more votes than Reichert in the primary, only to lose in the fall). But DelBene has raised $1.7 million, almost as much as her November opponent. She also has yet to spend much of her cash. Can she catch Reichert? That remains to be seen. But in an interview with seattlepi.com before the primary, DelBene spoke about the need to get the economy moving again, why she disagrees with President Obama about Afghanistan and how “Reichert is part of the problem” in the other Washington.

What follows is a slightly edited transcript of the conversation:

There seems to be a real anger directed at Washington, D.C., now, and it seems mostly focused on the economy. What do you think Congress should be focusing on? Should the address the deficit or should they spend more money to try to get people back to work?

I think the biggest way we address the deficit is through economic growth. There are definitely programs we can put in place, and legislation we can put in place, is address needless spending. But the number one thing we need to do is get the economy moving…I wrote an economic plan…We have to look at a long-term solutions, not short-term patches. Financial services reform is one key area we needed to start on. That was a beginning, I don’t think we’ve completed it, we’ll see as it’s being implemented. But we also still know there are small businesses out there that don’t have access to capital. Until we start meeting their needs, we haven’t really made the progress we need to. The second part is infrastructure. I think there are some investments we need to make in building a foundation that businesses can grow on. One great example that is very important here is high-speed rail, for cargo, because our ports are losing business to Prince Rupert up in Canada because they have a better method for getting cargo from the port to the center of the continent.

Your background is in business and high-tech. The business community is really down on President Obama and the Democrats. Why do you think that is?

I think that we tend, in both parties, to speak in polarizing terms. To be successful we need to make sure workers and businesses are successful, it’s got to be both. One doesn’t succeed without the other…That’s why I said it can’t just be about what we’re going to do today, it’s got to be about what do we need to do today that’s going to help our economy, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, to be where we want it to be. Energy is obviously a place we need to focus on.

What do you think of federal immigration policy? In Arizona they’re keying on going after suspected illegal aliens. But up here tech communities like Microsoft have expressed frustration because they can’t get foreign workers into the country, which they believe is hurting their competitiveness. Is the immigration system broken? And if so, how would you fix it?

I do think the immigration system has been a victim of neglect for a long time. People’s frustration is that Washington, D.C., has not stepped up on this issue at all. It’s not surprising that Arizona did what they did. The frustration is very high and they never saw movement from the federal government on this. I think they took the wrong path, but I understand the frustration. I think we need comprehensive immigration reform. That means securing our borders, clamping down on businesses that are hiring, because you have a supply and demand issue, and putting together a path to earned citizenship for those who are here. We have a two-pronged problem, there’s what’s going to happen with the next person who’s looking at coming into the country, and how do we handle that. But we also have the issue of handling of what’s happening to the people who are in the country illegally. We have to address both.

The war in Afghanistan is controversial. It effects people in the 8th District because there are military families. What’s your position on Afghanistan. Is the president’s short-term push, followed by a withdrawal, the right way to go?

I think in Afghanistan, in order to create a secure and peaceful and environment you have to a government in place that the people support. The people of that country have to take ownership. I don’t believe we have that in Afghanistan today. Our government has been clear, they don’t feel comfortable with the government of Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan aren’t taking ownership. I don’t think this can be a pure military solution. I was not supportive of the surge, because of that, because I don’t think more military is going to change the dynamic. I do think the focus from the United States perspective, from a military perspective, should be protecting the nuclear arsenal in Pakistan. But I do think that in Afghanistan we have to figure out a way for people to take ownership of their country. I do know, from talking to people in Afghanistan, if foreign troops build schools and clinics, they are definitely targets for the Taliban and others to destroy. If the Afghan people build schools and clinics, they stay put.

Back to the deficit, two big drivers are defense spending and entitlement spending – Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. Going forward, where can savings be found? If you were elected to Congress, what would you want to do?

Once again, I think economic growth is part of it. Because that lifts the economy up generally and helps on the revenue side. I think on the spending side, what you would first do in business is go in and look at what’s broken and not working, or where there’s abuse of the system. I do think we have places where, Medicare, there’s been a lot looked at in terms abuse of Medicare….so we need to get rid of the needless spending and the abuse of the system. There’s millions of dollars to be saved. I do believe in Pay Go, I would’ve supported that. I actually think we have to really live by it to, just saying it, and voting for it, and then assuming everything is an exception is not going to have the impact we need to have. That’s going to force some tough choices, as it’s supposed to. I think we have a difference between long-term spending and discretionary spending. If you’re going to make an impact in the short term, discretionary is definitely where you should look first. And the majority of the discretionary spending is defense spending. I do think we have places, and Secretary Gates has pointed this out, where we’re trying to contract building of equipment that the military doesn’t even want. That’s lots of money there to.

Changes to the country’s health system were a big legislative accomplishment for President Obama. Going forward, are there things that you’d like to see changed or added?

We started out with what I would call health insurance reform, not health care reform. I don’t think it’s really labeled correctly. Health insurance reform was really about access – pre-existing conditions, kids being able to stay on their parents’ plans longer, all those things where we had a lot of people losing access to health care. That’s important, I support that.

I don’t think we’ve really tackled the issue of cost, though. I do think we need to move forward on what I would call health care reform. Which is addressing the underlying problem of quality of care versus quantity of care. You see this in a business, things move toward where the rewards systems are in place. And the reward systems are about quantity of care. People get paid for doing more stuff. That’s why you see folks likes my mother, who went into her doctor and had early pneumonia. She had an x-ray, and then they sent her to the hospital, with the x-ray, but the hospital decided they needed another x-ray, because it was their x-ray. At some point – two x-rays in a day – at some point, you say there’s a problem. Insurance might pay for that, but that creates extra costs for everyone.

The net result we all want is quality of care, and quality of outcomes. We need to look at how we put the system in place where quality becomes the driving factor and the reward mechanism. There are some folks trying to move in that direction, but, obviously, because the current system rewards certain players, those folks are going to fight against change.

I see this about a lot of issues, not just health care. We need to be good stewards of policy. We let health care sit around for 30 years. We haven’t updated health care policy forever. We ended up with incredibly out of date legislation. I would disagree with President Obama on this one. We need to address health care, probably every session. See what’s working, what’s not working.

Are there issues you disagree with President Obama on? Are there things you think he should be focusing on that he hasn’t?

We spoke a little about Afghanistan. On health care, I think we ended up with some process, but we didn’t get to the core issue we originally were talking about, so there’s more to do. I disagree with his statement to Congress, which was I don’t expect to be the first president to tackle health care, but I hope to be the last. My response was, I certainly hope he’s not the last. I hope every president has to deal with this issue and keep this issue current. I think we were very slow on financial services reform. It probably should’ve been one of the first things we tackled in this Congress. Our economy is the number one issue, and we’ve been really slow at coming to the table and putting things back on track.

Why do you think Rep. Reichert is not the right fit for the 8th District?

I think Congressman Reichert is part of the problem people are seeing in Washington, D.C. He has not brought new ideas to the table. He has not addressed any of the issues in terms of job creation, put together an economic plan, he voted against financial services reform. People want to know their representative is out there understanding their issues, bringing those to light and bringing ideas to the table. Sitting back and doing what you’re party tells you, I don’t believe, is bringing new ideas to the table.